It’s always been viewed this way, at least in the west. Land ownership quite literally defined western social power structures for a very long time.
That said, the use case for housing is housing. Ownership generally isn’t that relevant, to the extent that prices are still set by supply and demand. If there are enough units on the market, prices or rents will be reasonable. If not, prices will go up.
My suspicion is that the attraction of single family houses as an investment asset on this scale are going to partially fade away. It’s driven by the fact that real estate is somewhat uncorrelated with equities and unleveraged returns have historically been comparable to the SP500. However, historical performance does not necessarily reflect future performance, and single family homes cost a lot to maintain.